Developmental Psychology Quiz

Developmental Psychology

• Developmental psychology is the study of behavioral changes throughout a lifespan.
• It examines how and why certain behaviors develop.
• It also considers factors that contribute to abnormal development.

Topics to be Discussed

• Cognitive development
• Moral development
• Psychosocial development

Cognitive Development (Learning Objectives)

• Define developmental fields and their various stages.
• Form a comprehensive psychological understanding of normal life situations.
• Identify specific characteristics of each developmental stage.

What is Cognitive Development?

• The acquisition of thinking, understanding, and problem-solving abilities.
• Piaget studied this by observing children (primarily his three sons).

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

• Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years)
• Preoperational (2 to 7 years)
• Concrete Operational (7 to 11 years)
• Formal Operational (12 years and beyond)

Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years)

• Infants learn through sensory observation.
• They gain motor control through activities, exploration, and manipulating their environment to interact with the world around them.
• By the end, babies develop:
  • The ability to seek out new stimuli in the environment with intentional behavior.
  • Object permanence (around 18 months-2 years): recognizing objects still exist even when unseen. Infants start searching for hidden objects around 9 months.
  • Symbolic thought and word association (around 18 months): using words to represent objects.

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

• Language use becomes more complex.
• Thinking lacks logic or deductive reasoning. Events are not connected logically.
• Symbolic thinking emerges enabling a representation of objects through symbolic play (a doll can represent a friend).
• Key limitations:
  • Lack of understanding cause and effect (e.g., a child dropping and breaking a glass may think the glass was destined to break).
  • Difficulty understanding that objects remain the same despite changes in appearance (same doll in different settings perceived as different).
  • Phenomenalistic causality: events occurring together are seen as causing each other (e.g., an afternoon nap leading to another day).
  • Represent objects in terms of their functions (e.g., a child's father being a policeman leads them to believe any other policeman is also him).
  • Animistic thinking: giving inanimate objects human qualities (e.g., talking to a teddy bear).
  • Egocentrism: difficulty viewing situations from another's perspective.

Classroom Applications for Preoperational Stage

• Activities involving counting and arranging objects with similar attributes.
• Introduction to letters, alphabet sounds, and words through activities.
• Role-playing activities.

Preoperational Stage continued - Application

• Role-playing helps children cope with concepts they cannot yet fully understand.
• Understanding cause-and-effect is important for explaining physical ailments.
• The ability to understand reversibility helps children comprehend changing states (e.g., broken bones can mend).

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)

• Thinking becomes more logical and systematic.
• Able to draw conclusions using logic from two premises (deductive reasoning, e.g., Ahmed is taller than Nada, Nada is taller than Jana, then Ahmed is taller than Jana).
• Recognize that the amount of a substance remains the same despite changes in shape or appearance (conservation).
• Understand the relationship between things and that one thing can transform into another and back (reversibility). Examples include understanding water turning to ice or 2 + 3 = 5, and 5 -3 =2.
• Gain the capacity to take other's perspectives.

Formal Operational Stage (12 years and beyond)

• Ability to think logically and systematically using symbolic forms.
• Abstract reasoning, developing theories, and testing them against reality.
• Able to engage in scientific experimentation and create propositions, hypothesis, and theories.

Summary of Piaget's Stages

• Piaget identified four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.
• These stages describe how children's thinking abilities change and progress throughout childhood and beyond.

Moral Development

• Morality involves values that influence thinking, feelings, and behavior.
• Kohlberg theorized moral development occurs in three levels:
  • Level I ("preconventional reasoning"): before age 9, reasoning is based on external rewards or punishments.
  • Level II ("conventional reasoning"): during early adolescence, standards of others (e.g., parents, society) become more important.
  • Level III ("postconventional reasoning"): during early adulthood, individuals develop personal moral codes.

Test your knowledge on the key concepts of developmental psychology, including cognitive, moral, and psychosocial development. Explore Piaget's stages of cognitive development and understand the various behavioral changes throughout the lifespan.